The records are the infrastructure

A revoked ELD maker has revealed there is huge demand for hours-of-service cheat devices — hardware and software that lets a driver log a legal day while running an illegal one. The admission is a mirror: the industry’s compliance infrastructure is only as real as the device that records it.

The records are the infrastructure

If a record can be bought, the enforcement built on it is fiction. Attestation from a device you can pay to fake is not proof; it is a genre of hopeful fiction. The fix is not more policing of devices. It is tamper-evident telemetry with a chain of custody that starts inside the vehicle, and a registry that makes both the driver and the device identifiable and verifiable. That is the difference between “I say I drove” and “the trip is recorded.”

A record that can be bought is not a record.

• HOS data bound to vehicle telemetry, not to a user-interface log.
• Device identity and driver identity on the same registry.
• Alterations visible on the record, not erased by it.

The demand for cheat devices is a market signal that enforcement has been a category mistake. Stop asking the driver to be honest; make the infrastructure be honest, and the game changes.